Men fleeing Somalia try to free their vehicle from mud after a heavy rainfall. Every year, thousands of people risk their lives crossing the Gulf of Aden to Yemen to escape conflict and poverty in the Horn of Africa. One third of those arriving are from Somalia, which has not had an effective central government for three decades and is torn apart by fighting. Some 6,600 Somalis reached Yemen in the first half of 2010.

Organization links:

Canadian photojournalist Ed Ou was born in 1987 and took up photography as a teenager, covering the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, as well as the fall of the Islamic Courts in Somalia, while he was studying politics in the Middle East. He later worked for Reuters and The Associated Press, covering stories ranging from conflict in the Middle East to fashion in New York City. After university, he moved to Kazakhstan and more recently focused his lens on refugees fleeing Somalia.